Cottage Farming

Standing around an Audubon Society store the other day I picked up a bag of coffee beans that was promoted as being “shade grown”. I had no idea what that meant, but according to the packaging growing coffee in the shade is somehow better for birds. I’m a fan of birds, so I was curious enough to Google it.

Despite my inclination to hug trees, I’m generally skeptical of the latest “save the planet” fads. Reading through the documents, however, their arguments seemed to make sense. The basic concept appears that most coffee plantations are made by clear-cutting forests (not good for birds, and reducing carbon uptake). Further, most coffee strains don’t fair well in the direct sun they’re now forced to be in (so varieties are bred to withstand the light). Roll into this the larger plantations tend to be run by larger corporations (not community farmers) and use more chemical (not organic) fertilizers.

Among the links I turned up, I found a company in Oregon that flipped each negative attribute on its head. Enter Grounds for Change, a roaster and distribution company that claims it’s coffee is:

• 100% Organic
• Shade Grown
• Fair Trade
• Carbon Neutral

Now, that’s a cup of coffee that’ll shine your Earth-friendly halo. And to top it all off, it’s super tasty.

… all I need to do now is figure out how to offset the carbon for transit from Oregon to Massachusetts.

UPDATE: 11/7/2008

I received a couple more links thanks to @2xlp that are worth a look, too:

• Gimme Coffee
• Barefoot Coffee
• Intelligentsia Coffee

This may not be a totally original idea, but we came up with a way to easily water the garden without having to monkey with the hose every time. Since our hose is across the yard, each time we need to water there’s a process required that, while not onerous, is a minor barrier to ease. The solution was to fill up and leave a water sprayer next to the gardens.

Even though this was primarily a solution to increase the ease of watering, it turns out there are additional benefits. First of which is that plants grow better with water that’s warmed to ambient temperature, rather than the colder water generally coming right out of the tap. Leaving the sprayer out allows the sun to warm it throughout the day.

Second, and probably more important, we found we’re wasting a lot less water. When using the hose, we often let it run while we did minor work on the plants (e.g. pulling off dead leaves). Also, when using the hose we would be watering much more of the beds than was strictly necessary. Using the sprayer we only watered the area around the plants themselves, not the unplanted sections.

Finally… the kids love it, too, and they don’t get as soaked as they generally do when using the hose. Goodness all around.

According to a story I heard on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, eating meat takes a bite out of your carbon footprint. Specifically, it’s the production of the meat that takes its toll on the environment.

As global demand for meat products has increased in recent years, so has awareness of the environmental damage that the industry causes. Modern meat production uses enormous amounts of energy, pollutes water supplies and creates greenhouse gases.

An interesting quote in the piece was that by decreasing your yearly meat intake by 20% has the equivalent carbon offset as replacing your average mid-size sedan with a Prius. As they said Americans consume about 40% more meat per year than Europeans, it seems we’ve got the wiggle room there to make this happen.

Another snippet in the segment talked about how the adverse environmental impact would also be offset by eating meat that’s produced more locally. A lot of the issues arise from large scale feed farming and transportation.

In short: Think globally, and eat locally.